Mitt Romney is a successful politician, a wealthy businessman, and the ostensible Republican frontrunner for the presidency. He may also be a robot. And I love him

I confess: Mitt Romney has captured my imagination. It's a strange thing—he's not exactly known for that. At a time when Romney, the square-jawed, possibly "weird" head of hair who is also currently the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, is inspiring little more than Him? Fine, whatever enthusiasm from his GOP base, I find myself increasingly compelled. Not by his politics. It's his essence.

This is not without precedent. In 2007, when Romney made a long-shot bid for the presidency, finishing second in the Iowa caucuses to Mike Huckabee (ha!) before wilting to John McCain's surge in New Hampshire, his glimmer grabbed me. It wasn't what he was saying—the hybridized big-business conservative rhetoric dancing awkwardly with East Coast liberalism leaves me cold, bored, and sometimes revolted. It's how effortful and cheerily programmed he seemed. It was as if he had never had an actual conversation with a human before, though he had been hardwired to assume the tendencies of someone who had. It was cyborgian. He spoke in generalities, but with a politician's grace, talking quickly, laughing (at his own half-formed jokes) often, and spinning questions from other questions to service his message. Classic moves, but awkward no less. In the abstract, Romney is a modern pro pol, with a law degree and an MBA from Harvard Law and Business, a background in management consulting, a personal fortune exceeding $190 million (on the low end of estimates), and a CEO title to his name. He was also a successful one-term governor of Massachusetts, with a track record that includes lowering his state's deficit and implementing a controversial but auspicious health care plan. He is "qualified."

But that's not what's interesting about him. It's the way he conveys all of those elements—he's good theater. Romney speaks with what could be called affected determinism, emphasizing the second syllable of important words, straining to slow his forceful, tangling syntax. Romney isn't a fumbler, like George W. Bush, or a blind-truth sloganeer, like his emerging rival Michele Bachmann. He's not folksy or enraged or even impassioned, really. But he's on message, he's smooth, and when someone disagrees with him, his rendition of shock is almost comical in its actorly lunge. He'll laugh, shake that mane, then turn to the audience with a Get a load of this guy head tilt. He is, in a word, hilarious. There are few people I want to watch on television more than him. (A short list: Don Draper (not Jon Hamm), The Challenge's Chris "C.T." Tamburello, and Los Angeles Clippers power forward Blake Griffin.)

But it raises a question: How do we reconcile ourselves with interest, even fascination in something that we do not respect, agree with, or even understand? The notion of Romney as the President of the United States seems impossible, but also oddly inevitable. Romney laid back during this past weekend's Iowa Straw Poll, wisely understanding the flash-and-fizzle nature of the event. He finished seventh, focusing on New Hampshire and next February. And with Barack Obama embroiled in the darkest period of his administration, facing a flagging economy like Indiana Jones in a snake pit ("I hate debt ceilings!"), there is a chance for an opponent to sneak in. But Romney? Well, despite the opening and his leader of the pack mentality, which he has carried throughout 2011, the former Massachusetts governor has struggled to energize anyone about his candidacy.

"His fundraising, notably, has been surprisingly weak," David S. Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix wrote this week. "Yes, it easily leads this second-tier field [of candidates], but it's well behind his own numbers of four years ago—when he was a decided underdog in his first national race. He should be well outpacing that this time, as the front-runner, yet most GOP donors have been staying on the sidelines rather than pitching in for him."

Part of that may be due to visibility. Politico recently called his campaign the Mittness Protection Program. Romney has kept his profile relatively low for a candidate entering the hot 15 months before an election. It's not an unwise strategy, limiting the bungling to a minimum, nor overheating his base (assuming one exists) too soon. He has not been completely inoculated—in recent weeks, he's made some W.-esque missteps. His telling, impossibly foolish proclamation that "corporations are people" springs to mind. As does his Martha's Vineyard gaffe this week. These are pitch-perfect political disasters. Aaron Sorkin couldn't have written them better (or nudged an actor to deliver them faster.) And yet, my intrigue (or is it infatuation?) only grows. Perhaps it's the knowledge that he is a skinny jeans man. Or that hair—white at the temples, graying up from the sides, jet-black streaks fading from the top, curl delicately but unfussily upturned—which is a post-Reagan masterwork. It is aggressively good hair. Presidential even. And that makes sense, because Romney is aspiring to a movie-star presidency; think Michael Douglas or Kevin Kline. And as a society, we've been trained to spot certain techniques—the way he speaks, looks, acts. How he smiles for a photograph. How he gives a thumbs up signal. Obama promised a paradigm-buster for the white old man archetype. But his trying 2011 has revealed a side hustle as The Great Mitigator. Now, assuming he can fend off treason-proclaimer Rick Perry, Romney has a chance to take the power back. That's not the upside: I won't be voting for Mitt Romney. But I will be following him.